The best ways to select text on your phone and computer

In daily life, we often need to select text on our mobile phones and computers. From pasting addresses to copying web page quotes, accurately selecting words is a necessary skill in the digital age.

For decades, we may have been using the traditional way of clicking or touching and dragging the mouse or finger. But whether it is a mobile device or a desktop computer, there are shortcut keys that help us select text faster and more accurately.

Text selection on Android and iOS systems

The text selection method on smartphones is slightly different, as different operating systems may not allow application developers to enable text selection in the same way. But the following tips should work for most common applications, such as web browsers, document editors, and note-taking applications.

On Android system, double-click or long-press a word to select the entire word. If you want to select more words on either side of the first word, keep your fingers pressed and dragged around the screen. You can also click and drag the blue handle that appears at the edge of the selected text to expand the selection character by character.

[Related: The fastest way to scan text on your iPhone or iPad]

After selecting text, a pop-up menu appears above it: from this menu select Select All (you may need to click three dots first) to highlight all available text in a specific area. This may include all text in a chat message, fields on a web form, or the entire document. This pop-up menu also provides the Copy and Share options that you can use to move text to another location.

On iOS, the method is similar: you can click and hold, or double-click a word to select it. Release your finger and you will see blue handles appearing on both sides of the word. If necessary, you can drag the handle to expand the selection range character by character.

To select large chunks of text, click and hold a word, and keep your fingers pressed. If you then move your finger, the selection range will expand word by word so you can quickly select the entire sentence or paragraph. After you release your finger from the screen, you will see a blue handle appear.

Unlike Android, you can also select the entire paragraph with three clicks on one finger. After selecting text, a pop-up menu appears above it, you can select Select all (highlight all text in a page or app specific part) and copy the text to iPhone clipping board so that it is pasted into another application.

Text selection on Windows and macOS systems

You have more flexibility in selecting text than a smartphone with a keyboard and mouse or trackpad. You can simply click and drag through a portion of the text, but there are many other text selection tips to know.

One trick that works on both Windows and macOS is to quickly select a word with double click—if you then keep the mouse or trackpad button pressed, you can expand the selection in either direction one word at a time. For paragraphs, change it to three-clicks: Like words, you can leave your selection on one paragraph or drag the cursor to select other paragraphs.

On your computer, there are no pop-up menus like mobile devices, but there are keyboard shortcuts. For example, using Ctrl A on Windows systems and Cmd A on macOS systems, you can select all text in a document or web page. After selecting text, use Ctrl C on Windows and Cmd C on Mac and copy the text to the clipboard, while Ctrl V or Cmd V Will cut the text.

You can also right-click the selected text section to bring up the context menu. The options on this menu will vary depending on the program you are currently using, but you should find the Copy and Cut options. You may also see the option to delete text and share to another location.

[Related: 20 essential Windows keyboard shortcuts to make you forget your mouse]

If you are more used to using keyboard shortcuts to select text, you have many other options. On Windows and macOS systems, the

Shift left arrows and Shift right arrows will select the left or right text of one character at a time. You can also select the entire line of text at once using the Shift up arrows and Shift down arrows. It is important to note, though, that selecting the cursor will jump to the same position on adjacent lines, so if you want to select neat line text, it can be a bit confusing. This is a good reason to improve your selection range: hold Ctrl (Windows) or Option (macOS) at the same time, and the selection range will expand one word at a time instead of one character.

You can use

Shift Home (Windows) or Cmd Shift left arrow (macOS) to select all text on the left side of the current line and use Shift End (Windows) or Cmd Shift Right Arrow (macOS) Select all text to the right of the current line. There are also Ctrl Shift Home (Windows) or Cmd Shift up arrow (macOS) to select all content between the current location and the top of the document or web page, and Ctrl Shift End (Windows) or Cmd Shift Down Arrow (macOS) is used to select all content between the current location and the bottom of the document or web page.

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